Thursday, April 12, 2012

Dead Sea Scroll Fragment in Fort Worth

A local CBS station has more on the new Leviticus fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls going on display this summer in Fort Worth.

The fragment is 14.5 centimeters long and 8 centimeters high. It was put on display for CBS 11 in the MacGorman Chapel. Seminary President, Dr. Paige Patterson, is thankful to have it.

[...]

The scrap is called Paleo Leviticus. Paleo means old and Leviticus is the name of the third book in the old testament.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered in 1947. A shepherd looking for a goat threw a rock into a cave in Qumran and heard something shatter.

[...]

One of the scriptures in the fragment is Leviticus 22:21. It tells how a special offering needs to be without defect or blemish which is symbolic of the Messiah.

Steven Ortiz, a Biblical Archeology Professor at the seminary said, “What we do in archeology is actually put the flesh and blood on the actual stories.”

Ortiz is currently involved in two important digs in Israel and Cyprus.

He said, “I think a lot of times, people sitting in pews hear these stories and think of them like Aesops Fables and what we do in archeology is actually put the flesh and blood on the actual stories.”

That recalls a statement by William F. Albright: “Writing without artifacts is like flesh without a skeleton, and artifacts without writing are a skeleton without flesh.”

The story includes a video with images of the fragment. More information about the exhibit can be found here.